


Speak to the Manager

by Reavv



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Crack Treated Seriously, Found Family, Gen, Modern Character in Thedas, Multi, Possession, socio-political issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-18 17:09:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28621554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reavv/pseuds/Reavv
Summary: The first sign that something is wrong, is when, early in the morning when most of Haven is still sleeping, and the snow is falling in soft flakes that dampen sound and sight, one of the elven servants screams loud enough to wake even the Chantry workers in their stone fortress.The town comes running, obviously, only for Cassandra to push through the crowd around the Herald’s cabin and find—Nothing.The Herald is gone, and so is their only chance of fully closing the Breach.—“Idiotic? We were being held captive by cult members!” the stranger continues, throwing his hands up and almost hitting his own overly large horns.
Comments: 21
Kudos: 88





	Speak to the Manager

**Author's Note:**

> Hahaha. Ehem. This won't be a surprise to my discord members (join here if you want sneak peeks and general fandom content [ here](https://discord.gg/cun3KPZ)) but here we go—enjoy another chaos gremlin dragon age fic

The first sign that something is wrong, is when, early in the morning when most of Haven is still sleeping, and the snow is falling in soft flakes that dampen sound and sight, one of the elven servants screams loud enough to wake even the Chantry workers in their stone fortress.

The town comes running, obviously, only for Cassandra to push through the crowd around the Herald’s cabin and find—

Nothing.

The Herald is gone, and so is their only chance of fully closing the Breach.

—

“I hope you realise how absolutely idiotic you are being,” the stranger says to himself.

Alye watches curiously as the qunari’s face and body language switches abruptly.

“Idiotic? We were being held captive by cult members!” the stranger continues, throwing his hands up and almost hitting his own overly large horns.

“Cult members that are trying to save the world,” the stranger points out, switching once again. “And that are now going to be chasing after us like we have their magical mcguffin—which, oh, what do you know.”

Alye resettles her burden—the last of her belongings she was able to save from the Templars—and looks over to the other occupant of the camp.

“Are they always like this?” she whispers, eyeing the pacing qunari curiously. The glowing hand is almost more eye catching than the horns.

“Dunno. I’ve only been here an hour or so now,” the elf replies, blinking slowly. The bleeding seems to have stopped, she notices, although he still looks a little pale. She gathers from what has already been said that the qunari saved him as well, although not before he was injured.

She wonders idly if it happened the same way as with her own rescue—a large figure bursting through the treeline screaming his head off, swinging an axe that might have at some point burst into flames.

“Yeah, well if we had stuck around then who would have saved these chumps, huh?” the stranger points out, and silence rings through the camp as that falls down like a weight on them all.

“Well...I’m not uh. Sure exactly what you were running from,” Alye slowly offers. “But I’m glad you arrived when you did.”

The stranger’s nose wrinkles in an expression of such pure disgust Alye has to stifle a laugh.

“Ugh. _Templars_ ,” the stranger complains, throwing himself down on the earth by the fire. “I thought the game was over exaggerating how—how—”

“Annoying? Dangerous?” she offers.

“Stuck up. Self-righteous. Deluded,” the elf continues.

“Cliche,” the stranger hisses, looking offended at the very word. Just as quickly the expression smooths out and he snorts.

“Yes, because their merit as a narrative device is the issue here.”

Alye swaps glances with the elf and turns back to nod seriously.

“Narrative devices are important,” she says, as if she knows what she’s talking about. It’s probably better to play along with whatever delusions their saviour is under, if it keeps them safer for longer.

“Thank you!” the stranger replies, looking vindicated. “Anyways, we shouldn’t stick around too long. They no doubt have friends close by, and there’s only so many lucky strikes we can depend on,” he continues.

“Seems like more than just luck,” the elf muses, eyes sharp. “Where’d you learn to fight?”

“On the playground—Wait, no, what is even a playground?”

Alye sighs, and goes to pack up the rest of the camp. There’s not a lot to pack, thankfully, even counting the supplies they looted off the Templars. Whoever the stranger is, he had very little besides his weapons and armour on him, and both Alye and the elf are the kind of poor that has to make do.

She pauses in between wrapping what little preserved food they have, glancing over at two others as her hands smooth out cloth.

“I—I suppose if we are traveling together, we should exchange names?” she asks, interrupting their quiet banter.

The stranger blinks at her in confusion for a moment.

“I, uh. I didn’t realise we would be traveling together? I’m mostly just hiding from the Inquisition—don’t you have somewhere to go?”

“You think two peasants without even a pitchfork or blade, being chased by Templars, have somewhere to go?” the elf asks, raising a brow.

“You cannot tell me you’re a peasant,” the stranger retorts, waving at the elf’s...everything. “If those aren’t knife calluses then I’m a walrus.”

“...Whatever the case, we’ve been traveling through the woods for a few days together, and uh. Seem to get on well,” Alye offers. She doesn’t point out that it’s extremely convenient to have a skilled fighter keeping them safe, and that without the both of them, she fears the stranger would walk off a cliff or something suitably dire.

“Ohhhh,” the stranger mutters to himself. “Is this a found family trope? Are these new companions since we ditched the Inquisition? I wonder which one of them will turn out to be the backstabbing mage.”

Alye and the elf share glances.

“...You can call me Harel,” the elf offers, ignoring the stranger completely.

“You’re giving me a fake name that means _‘to trick’_?” Alye snorts, shaking her head. It’s about what she expects right now, if she’s honest. “My name is Alye Longfellow.”

They turn as one towards the stranger.

“What? Oh. My name is Karen— _my_ name is Kh’erin.”

She ignores the repeated phrase with what is starting to become experience.

“Wonderful,” she says, depositing the bundle in her hands into his arms. “Now, we should get going. I don’t want to have to clean any more blood off things right now.”

—

“What do you mean you can’t find him?” Cassandra repeats, leaning against Leliana’s desk like the more weight she uses the quicker the answers will start flowing.

“I mean what I said,” Leliana sighs, looking as annoyed as she ever does. “The scouts followed tracks out south of Haven, but the storm covered anything further than that, and so far no reports have been made about the Herald in either the Hinterlands or the Storm Coast.”

“That’s a lot of ground to cover,” Cassandra points out, eyeing the map. “He could be anywhere by now.”

“Unlikely. He wouldn’t go up into the mountains with the storm, so that disqualifies most of the west,” Cullen says, angling the map to look at it closer. “Crestwood is closer, if you hug the coast, but the terrain is rougher. The easiest route would be to go south and then east, using the chaos in the Hinterlands to disappear.”

“And until we secure the Crossroads and are able to position our scouts and soldiers, we’re unlikely to find anything more,” Leliana continues. “You’ll have to go yourself, Cassandra. Without the Herald, our chances of convincing the Chantry is slim, but I’ve heard of a sympathetic Chantry Mother attempting to help the refugees there. She might know something.”

“Perhaps, or she might be all too happy to let the heretics fumble about,” Cullen snorts. “We would be better off sending more men.”

“We are unlikely to find the Herald amiable by sending soldiers after him,” Josephine interrupts, looking up from her ledger. “And it would not be a good look for our supporters, hunting down our Herald like a common criminal.”

“Perhaps the Herald should have thought of that _before_ running off like—”

“Enough,” Cassandra sighs, knuckling at the bridge of her nose. “I will go with some of our men and clear a way through the Hinterlands. Perhaps the apostate knows something of tracking magics, or Tethras can be intimidated to using his skills. We will find him.”

They have to, after all. Otherwise they, and the world, are doomed.

The others do not look happy at the decision, but they rarely do these days. Cassandra carefully rolls up one of the spare maps, dotted with likely locations for a man to go to ground, and exits the war room.

Outside, Haven continues on, the bustle and noise of both the Inquisition members and the supporting peasants only slightly dimmed by the absence of their saviour. High above, the sky is awash in green hues, knitted together temporarily by the Herald’s mark but not gone, yet. She dodges a requisition officer with arms full of documents, and nods to a soldier she barely recognises, before finally stumbling upon where the dwarf has sequestered himself.

“Not run off yet?” she snorts, watching him close his ever present book as she gets near. The curiosity she feels at what he could be writing is muted by the stress still pressing down on her, and the knowledge that at the moment the Inquisition could ill-afford his departure as well.

“Not yet,” he replies without elaborating. “What can I do for you, Seeker?”

He looks like he already knows what she wants, and she has to shove down the irritation and frustration that wants to bubble up.

“We are going after the Herald,” she sighs, voice quiet but sharp. “I would. Appreciate your aid in tracking them down.”

The words barely make it past her teeth. He raises his brow.

“Don’t sound so eager,” he pokes, looking amused as her own brows furrow down in response. “Thought I was an imposition on your, ah, Inquisition.”

She curses his tendency towards slippery word play—he won’t agree to anything unless forced to, or unless it aligns with his own goals. She already knew that, of course. She might not be Leliana, but she’s spent enough time with him to know at least a sliver of his personality and motivations.

“Eventually, if the Herald cannot be found, we’ll have to find other means of closing the Breach,” she points out, leaving the rest unsaid. If they can’t find the Herald, she might just be tempted to go back to trying to find Hawke.

Tethras’ face is terrifying blank for a moment, before he smiles.

“That would be unfortunate for everyone,” he agrees, straightening up. “We’ll, you’ll have me and Bianca when it’s time.”

She nods, something close to satisfaction running through her veins. Something close to disgust follows it—underhanded dealings are antithesis to her being. It makes her sick, to think what she is willing to let go in the name of their goals, even if threatening the dwarf has been something she’s not minded much in the past.

It was different, then, though, when it was just information. This is... tying him to the Inquisition in such a way through threats of his allies…

“Good,” she says, nodding again. “Have you seen the apostate?”

If Tethras is surprised by the question he doesn’t show it.

“Over by the apothecary, if I’m not mistaken,” he says instead, nodding in that direction. “He’s been talking with Adan about something or another.”

She thanks him and leaves the fire, leather creaking at the snap of cold wind that hits her as soon as she’s out of the sheltered nook. It doesn’t take long to find the apostate now that she knows where to look.

The subsequent conversation goes quickly, as he proclaims a desire to continue working with the Inquisition and easily accepts her offer to travel into the Hinterlands.

If the expression on his face as she leaves sends an odd feeling through her, she brushes it off as the biting cold of the snow.

—

They move through the forest, dodging rogue Templar patrols and paranoid groups in robes, coming across skirmishes too late to do much besides pick through the bodies and collect anything valuable left behind.

Kh’erin seems to switch between moods on these remnant battlefields, morose and calm in equal measures, excitable about some gore covered keepsake, ill at the slightest bit of viscera on another.

Harel and the woman—Alye—quickly get used to the qunari’s idiosyncrasies. He’s good in a fight, and only squeamish after the fact if at all, so Harel doesn’t much care if he talks to himself, or speaks of odd things, or moves sometimes like a bumbling mabari pup. Kh’erin takes on an equal amount of chores around camp, asks few questions about their past, and seems completely ignorant of the odd charisma that follows him around like a shroud.

They’ve saved three other people—all peasants with homes to go back to, thank the Creators, and so no one that sticks around—and they are consistently gifted with whatever meaningless object they happen to still have.

Flowers, or a heirloom ring, or an old dagger.

“Nice,” Kh’erin mutters, examining the last item closely. In front of him the farmer wrings his hands nervously and smiles with something a little glazed in his eye. Harel notes disdainfully that the poor sod hasn’t stopped blushing yet, despite Kh’erin’s complete lack of interest in the farmer himself.

“Doesn’t he use hammers?” Alye asks, quietly.

“Yes,” Harel responds, less quietly. “He doesn’t seem to be very discerning when it comes to weapons.”

“Hey!” Kh’erin snorts, turning. “I love all my weapons. Bladed, blunted, covered in oil and lit on fire, there’s a use for them all.”

He turns back to the farmer, voice softening and turning coy. It took a few days for Harel to figure out that it wasn’t on purpose—he naturally just seems to end up coming across as if attempting to seduce people, when he’s not acting completely unstable.

“This is very nice, are you sure you don’t still need it?”

The farmer shakes his head and proclaims it a gift, pushing it further into Kh’erin’s hands. Around them the dead continue to burn merrily away. It is the least romantic atmosphere Harel has seen, and he’s been stuck in a cellar while blood and rainwater dripped from the cracks in the ceiling while someone’s husband was throwing up last night's celebratory wine.

“Well if you insist,” Kh’erin proclaims, voice snapping back into a more exuberant tone. He straps it to his belt and looks irrationally pleased by it all.

“We should move soon,” Alye points out, once it looks like things might get awkward. “The fighting is only getting worse the further we go.”

“Aye,” the farmer replies, blush fading as worry edges into his eyes. “The Templars and mages are turning the countryside to pieces. Most of the towns near to the crossroads have been completely overturned.”

“Tch,” Kh’erin mutters, rubbing at a horn. “Why are both sides so completely—”

“Violent? Deranged?” Alye offers.

“Idiotic. Illogical,” Harel retorts, thumbing at his own dagger.

“—boring,” Kh’erin finishes. “Oh sure, they think they’re fighting for some better good and what all, but…”

Kh’erin’s nose twitches.

“The Templars are basically just releasing every dark impulse like they’re trying to win a title for most stereotypical of villains, and the mages are just. There. Why are they there?”

“Uh.” The farmer blinked. “Because the Circles rebelled?”

“There’s Redcliff though! And even if they didn’t want to be stuck with Fiona and enslaved by Magisters—”

“ _What_.”

“—They could at least go to ground properly! Fighting a war is great and all, but you can’t fight when all your fighters are dead, and most of these mages are like. Babies.”

Kh’erin nods to where one of the bodies—a robed figure, face staring up blankly at the sky, the patchiness of it’s mustache and the pimples on it’s jaw speaking to its age.

The farmer is looking a little uncertain.

“I’m pretty sure the Templar’s aren’t letting them go to ground,” Alye points out, before tugging at Kh’erin’s arm gently. Harel, who knows how gentle Alye _Isn’t_ most of the time, simply shakes his head and starts re-gathering their supplies. They’ll need a cart soon.

“Right,” Alye says, hefting one of the packs and passing over the others. “We should follow the river until nightfall. There’s bear tracks nearby, and I don’t want to be caught up in their territory.”

“Ugh,” Kh’erin shudders, but dutifully grabs his pack and starts walking, waving at the farmer in goodbye as he does.

They get a few paces away before the qunari continues.

“This fighting is getting annoying,” he starts, and Harel can already feel a tension headache start. Nothing good happens when Kh’erin talks in that tone of voice.

“You have starving mages, starving _and_ power hungry Templars, starving peasants turned bandits, regular bandits who are probably also starving, mercenaries disguised as bandits who are probably not starving…”

“The farms are one of the first things that got destroyed in the unrest,” Alye agrees. “Large portions of land were burned from the fighting, or else farmers were run out and the fields went fallow.”

“Sounds like a lot of our problems would get fixed if people had food,” Kh’erin continues, before his face twitches and his voice changes slightly. “Not _all_ of our problems. We still have a giant hole in the sky raining demons and all, but you know.”

“What do you mean to do about it? I thought you didn’t, what was it, get involved _‘with a bunch of rabid church sniffers and fanatics’_?” Harel asks.

“Oh we’re not getting involved,” Kh’erin replies with more cheer than is really suitable for the topic. “But there’s empty fields, there’s a bunch of hungry people, there’s an excess of frustration and anger out there—and I hear gardening is good for the soul.”

Harel stares at Kh’erin and waits for the inevitable face twitch.

“Ok, it’s a horrible idea that won’t actually help any of the underlying societal issues involved, but it might keep them occupied long enough for us to get out of the Hinterlands.”

“So. You want to...convince the fighters to take up farming?” Alye asks skeptically. “How?”

“Blood magic—I mean. Uh. Some good ol’ fashion smooth talk. And perhaps a knock to the head or two. And some traps, baited with only the highest quality honey.”

Harel carefully parses that.

“So. You’re going to be the bait?”

“We’re going to be the bait,” Kh’erin agrees.

—

“Repeat that?” Cassandra asks the scout, staring at her over the requisition table, trying to infuse as much incredulousness as possible into two words.

“Sir! Reports are coming in of bandits, uh, farming one of the abandoned fields out by the eastern valley.”

“That’s what I thought you said,” Cassandra agrees, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “Why are bandits farming? How can you even tell that they _are_ bandits, and not just adventurous peasants?”

“Better question, what are they farming?” Tethras asks, looking enthralled.

“Witnesses have seen the group attacking travels a few days ago,” the scout answers. “A small group had settled in the area to reclaim the field, and the bandits were then spotted attempting to claim the land in return.”

“And...now they’re...farming?” Cassandra asks, staring.

“Now they’re farming,” the scout replies.

“Turned over a new leaf!” Tethras snorts. “Suppose it could be a front for a bigger operation, of course. Should we shake down some humble farmers? I hear the Herald has a love of radishes, you never know.”

“The number of rifts in the area is decreasing,” the apostate notes.

“Is that all?” Cassandra asks with a sigh, looking down at the map. The rifts _have_ been decreasing, which is the only reason she thinks they might be on the right track.

“Sir!” the scout salutes, stepping back.

Cassandra waits for relative privacy before turning towards the others.

“We should hurry to the Crossroads and Mother Giselle as quickly as possible. We don’t have time for distractions.”

“Farming bandits too pedestrian for you?” Tethras snipes, brow raised. The more amused he seems the less Cassandra has any desire to investigate these supposed bandits.

“If they’re not currently causing any problems, they can keep,” she snaps, straightening. “Our concern should be on locating the Herald.”

“Of course,” the dwarf replies, raising his hands conciliatorily.

Cassandra eyes him with suspicion, before switching her attention.

“Have any of your magics found any traces?”

The apostate shrugs one shoulder with more elegance than the gesture needs.

“Not with any more accuracy than before. Such magics, as you know, are notoriously tricky unless they involve blood, like phylacteries.” His words are particularly pointed.

She grits her teeth but refrains from speaking the words pushing up against her lips. She doesn’t have time to get into another fight with either of them right now—especially not when they are so close to the Crossroads.

“She never did answer my question on what they’re farming,” Tethras muses, and Cassandra groans in reply.

—

_Three days earlier._

“So. How are we doing this?” Alye asks, eyeing the field with trepidation. She has a hoe in one hand, and a basket of withered crops in the other. She feels very much out of her depth.

“The field isn’t in too bad of a shape,” Kh’erin muses, hands on hips. “Soil is poor, but what can you do without nitrogen crop rotation? Whatever the fuck that means. Maker forbid Karen make any sense.”

Truer words were never spoken, Alye muses. She slots ‘talking in the third person’ into the box of Kh’erin oddities.

“And now what?” Harel asks at her side, shading his eyes against the sun as he gazes at the tree line. “None of these turnips are much good for eating right now.”

“No, but if those big strapping men we passed on the way see us digging in the dirt and carrying baskets and laughing really loud over a steaming stew pot, they won’t care too much about what is actually growing in the field,” Kh’erin replies with a smile.

“And then we trap them,” Alye asks more than says, waiting for his nod to glance about again. “How?”

“Like I said, blood mag—ehem.”

Kh’erin’s smile is brittle as glass.

The silence stretches.

“Right,” she eventually says. “We’ll leave that to you, I suppose. We’ll set up...everything else.”

She’s not sure exactly _what_ the plan is, but there’s enough to set up to convince her there’s some sort of plan. As Kh’erin wanders off to do whatever ‘totally-not-blood-magic’, she slides over to Harel and waits for his attention to fall back onto her.

“So. What do you think is happening here?” she asks, even as she bends down to place her basket in the dry earth. “Runaway mage? Seems a little too good with that hammer, and I haven’t seen any magic yet, even when half the fights we end up in end up with someone on fire.”

Harel eyes her silently for a moment before sighing.

“Demon possessed?” he muses after a moment, stretching his neck and rolling up his sleeves to start filling the basket with more vegetables. “That hand is certainly fade-touched.”

“A demon closing fade rifts?” she asks, bending down to help him. “Seems counterintuitive.”

“Maybe it’s territorial,” he snarks, glancing over. “Or bound somehow.”

She thinks back to the past couple days and feels her lips twist.

“And this?” she asks, gesturing to the field and their current work.

“A ploy to get bodies for blood sacrifice,” Harel says, very seriously. Or very seriously, until a crack of something approaching a smile creeps across his face.

“What, the past couple fights haven’t been good enough?” she snorts, shaking her head. “I suppose there’s not been enough turnips. Too stringy.”

“Any meal is made better by a change in ingredients,” he replies. “I suppose person would get boring after a while, with no seasoning.”

There’s a long drawn out moment of silence before Alye feels her shoulders start to shake with laughter.

“Seasoning? Turnips as seasoning! No wonder demons are so angry!”

Harel huffs a quiet laugh, standing with the now full basket.

“You’ve obviously never had a proper turnip soup,” he says, nose in the air playfully. “It’s much better than squash.”

“Squash isn’t a seasoning either!”

“Anything is a seasoning if you try hard enough.”

Alye splutters and springs forward to grasp at the basket and pull it away from the elf. She knows he’s not serious, exactly, since he’s shown rather particular food sensibilities, and she’s seen him cook enough to know he’s a novice in the kitchen. Still.

“No, not turnip soup!” she cries. “We’re making a proper roast, or I’ll cook you into stew and feed you to Kh’erin.”

“We heard that!” the qunari yells from halfway across the field.

Alye glances at Harel and raises a brow, before laughter overcomes her once more.

—

They tend to the field.

Harel hasn’t helped something grow with his own hands in many years, although the motions come back to him soon enough. They’re not going to be here for long, he doesn’t think, and yet he still finds himself showing Alye the proper form for planting.

Kh’erin spends most of his time wandering the perimeter, doing who knows what. ‘Not blood magic’, supposedly.

Alye chops wood and builds up a store, as if for winter. Harel drags out the old furs from the half destroyed cabin and beats them free of dust and whatnot, and piles them up high at night around the fire. Kh’erin gathers a bunch of plants. Some of which Harel is pretty sure are just weeds.

On the second day, a quiet scout trip confirms that they’ve been noticed. The local bandit group is small, but well entrenched—and hungry. No Templars or mages, that he can see, but that was expected. Kh’erin wanted an ‘easier target’ to start with.

The second night they have a feast—or as much as one as they can with their limited ingredients—out on the porch of the cabin, a bonfire illuminating and sending smoke up into the sky. Harel specifically went hunting for deer, bringing back a young buck and going about the arduous process of skinning and gutting it.

Alye, not to be outdone, returned with three fat grouse, which end up simmered in thick broth of herbs and fat and then flash cooked over the fire, skin burnt crisp and fragrant.

Harel does make turnip soup, as threatened, but he cooks it down into a rue and serves it with the deer. The rest of the meat gets hung for smoking, causing the whole field to smell like charcoal and meat.

It is, as Kh’erin had mentioned, a very sweet bait for their trap.

It is on the third day that it is sprung.

—

Emmett has been leading the Brothers for only a few months now. There’d been an older man, experienced with thievery and such things, who had previously had his spot, but he’d died in the first flash of fighting between the mages and Templars. He’d been a grizzled, bitter man, but he’d kept them alive, even if living meant things Emmett knew his mother would have boxed his ears for.

Emmett by comparison, is... less.

Oh he does alright, in some ways. Few of the Brothers have died, after all, and they haven’t caught the attention of any of the bigger bandit bands yet either. But his ragtag group of hot headed teenagers and drunkards are doing barely better than they were before they joined the group, and that’s a dangerous situation for a young leader to be in.

If he doesn’t do something soon, he’s likely to be gutted in his sleep.

Unfortunately, their territory gives them little in the way of prey, besides the lean pickings of a few struggling towns, and the rare traveler. The men—and the Brother’s sole woman, who Emmett is afraid to discount even in his own mind—need some sort of action, before their boredom and hunger take them away from his control.

When the strangers move into the old Hammerin farm, he knows what needs to be done. Their obvious bounty of food only underscores the point.

They move at dawn, when the small group of farmers is sure to be asleep. Emmett _could_ go in swords raised, and take everything by force no matter the time of day, considering they outman them three to one, but he’s not looking for a fuss.

Go in, steal what isn’t bolted down, let the farmers recover enough to come back in a few months. Razing everything to the ground isn’t going to do him much in the long run.

Things go wrong as soon as they approach the thick forest around the farm. It’s overgrown, animal paths the only way forward, forcing them into walking one by one, or else spread out along different paths.

Then—

“Andraste’s tits!” Jessin cries with a yelp, as the sound of crashing branches through the night.

Emmett whirls around to see him disappear under the weight of a young tree, flattening him on his back in the mud. There’s a moment where he thinks he’s just witnessed one of his men die by tree—by tree! But then Jessin starts cursing up a storm.

“He’s good ‘n stuck, boss,” Lourand yells out, being the closest. “The trunk looks cut—luckily it don’t look too serious.”

“Not serious! I’m being crushed ‘er!”

“Shut it,” Emmett snaps, jogging over. A quick glance confirms Lourand’s words—the tree is young enough that it’s not going to kill him, pinned as he is by his legs under it’s trunk. Looking closer shows that the base of said trunk has axe marks, and not far away is a frayed rope.

“Shit,” he snaps, looking at it. “Looks like the farmers have set traps to the forest.”

“Maker fucking why?” someone mutters off to the side, and Emmett reaches out to slap them up the head instinctually.

“Why else would someone trap their new land? They’re paranoid sons of bitches, and for good fucking reason. Are we here for a picnic or what?”

Someone else giggles, and he turns to glare at them, before turning back to Jessin.

“Right, lets get that tree off of ‘ya,” he says, nodding to the group to help lift it off. It luckily doesn’t take long, between all of them, but it leaves Jessin with an awful limp and a continuous stream of curses.

“Keep your guard up,” Emmett orders, glaring out at the rest of them. “Stay close, ‘n don't go poking around too much.”

There’s a chorus of agreement. He lingers for a moment, staring at the fallen over tree, and snorts.

Not even good enough at traps to make them lethal.

Of course, an hour later, he rather wished they were.

“How the fuck are you lot so idiotic!” he snaps, unsheathing his sword to cut down yet another Brother from the snare. “Is it that hard to watch where you’re walking?”

The angry and embarrassed faces that stare back at him from the group rather answer that. Jessin, the poor sod, has been hit the most, limping and bruised and mud covered. The others are not much better.

Emmett himself hasn’t been untouched, either, although most of his scraps are from digging the others out of pit traps or climbing trees to cut them down.

“Enough of this,” he yells, pointing his sword at the whole of them. “Singlefile, Jessin in the middle. I’ll guide us through.”

There’s curses and grumbles and unrest, but eventually they make it through the woods, into the field itself. The cabin is not far off, and he breathes easier as soon as he sees it. Soon they’ll be done with this whole debacle. He gets ten paces through the field before he stops.

“Having fun?” a voice asks from the shadow of the trees, causing more than one of the Brother’s to jump and whirl around, weapons raised.

Emmett feels his throat bob, the dagger held up to his larynx nicking it slightly.

“Don’t move,” the elf crouched in the dirt tells him very calmly. “Weapons down.”

Out of the corner of his eyes, he can just see the large form of the qunari in the canopy of the trees, an overly large warhammer in hands, armour he’d not noticed on the farmers till now glinting in the pale morning light.

Emmett very slowly raises his hands and lets his sword drop. He has his daggers, of course, and his fists if he needs to, so the loss of one sword is easy enough. The Brothers, however—

“Boss!”

“Motherfuckin’ deadmeat! I’ll gut you!”

“Prepare to die—”

“Now, now,” the qunari muses, speaking loudly over the curses and threats. “If you die, however will you get out of the forest again? The traps have just been reset by now, and I’ve asked Alye to add some more dangerous ones since you dealt with the others so well.”

Emmett can’t move, not with the knife to his throat, but he very dearly wishes to, if only to throw something.

“You’re threatening us with _traps_?” he spits.

“No,” the elf with the knife says. “We’re threatening you with your life.”

“You must be exhausted,” the qunari continues. “Some of you look like you’ve been chased by bears! You’d probably fall over if you tried to fight right now, at best. I suppose you haven’t had a good meal in a while, hmm? Staying up late to plan your attack? Forgetting to drink because of your frustration?”

Emmett feels his teeth grind.

“There’s still more of us,” he points out. “You can’t fight us all.”

“Hmm, are you sure about that?” the qunari muses. “Hear that, Alye? He thinks this bedraggled gang of nerdowells can take us.”

At first he thinks the qunari is talking to the elf, but then another voice joins it, from a few paces away.

One of the Brothers lurches as the woman steps out of the trees, a sword in hand and loops of rope coiled around her shoulder.

“That seems poorly thought out. Do they enjoy being caught in snares so much?”

In hindsight, the chaos that descends was completely warranted. Emmett only catches a glimpse of it, before he’s pinned under the elf and eating a fist full of dirt. There’s yells, curse, a few grunts of pain. In the midst of it all, even as Emmett struggles, the elf quickly and efficiently has his hands tied behind his back.

It’s as well done as any bandit, and he wonders for a moment if a rival gang has caught wind of them after all. Soon after the elf’s weight disappears, no doubt to go join the skirmish.

Unfortunately for the Brothers, the qunari wasn’t wrong. They are tired, hungry, and dehydrated. They’ve spent the past couple hours laboriously traversing a forest filled with traps aimed to hobble and disable them.

And Emmett is already out of the fight.

He struggles angrily to his knees in time to watch the woman smack Jessin in the back of the head with the pommel of her blade, knocking him to his knees. Her form is strangely familiar. The qunari on the other hand seems to be jauntily throwing people into each other, using the war hammer to sweep their feet.

“Enough!” he cries, throat sore for more than one reason.

Loumand goes flying. One, two, three Brothers fall down and don’t get up. He grits his teeth and feels one of them crack.

“We are just desperate farmers!”

None of them are farmers.

“Oh! Why didn’t you say so!” the qunari says, even as he barely dodges a sword swing and punches someone in the face. “We just so happen to have a parcel of empty land! Fully stocked!”

“We’re not here for land,” Emmett yells out across the fighting. “We just wanted something to eat. We’ve not had food for a fortnight!”

“That’s rough buddy,” the qunari replies, head butting someone. “We have a room full of turnips and smoked deer! Even some leftover grouse!”

“We didn’t mean no har—” Emmett stops and coughs, blinking. “Was. Was that a sales pitch?”

“Is it working?”

The qunari comes to a rest, hefting the warhammer and eyeing the still standing fighters. Perhaps sensing the still unfolding circumstance, or perhaps simply out of now justified caution, they’re hesitant now.

Emmett shakes his head, confusion and anger and humiliation mixing all together.

“What fucking idiot tries to sell their own farm to bandits?” he snaps.

“But you aren’t bandits! You’ve already said you’re farmers, and as we’ve shown, the land is still good for something! As many turnips as you’ll be able to bear—more, even, enough to sell.”

Emmett stares at the qunari.

“Aren’t you hungry?” the elf asks.

“Aren’t you tired?” the woman continues.

“It’s hard to survive out here,” the qunari muses, leaning the war hammer against one shoulder. “It’s easy to trick yourself into doing whatever you can to make it another winter. And it’s not as if anyone else will help, right? They’d rather spit in your face. It’s everyone for themselves, if you want to survive.”

“And I suppose you think you can fix that with a few pretty words and some amateur traps,” Emmett spits. What a load of bullshit. If his ma couldn’t get him to stop thieving, this deranged stranger isn’t going to have much luck. What does this Maker fucking ass know, anyways? With his shiny armour and his meals of grouse and deer?

“Oh no, I think you’re going to fix that all on your own—like I said, it’s hard to survive out here, but you have. You know a good deal when you hear one.”

Emmett swallows.

He looks at the wide eyes of the Brothers, their trembling hands, their dented and notched swords and threadbare clothes. The sallow cheeks and brittle hair. He’s only been the boss for a few months, but—

But he’s always kept them alive, mostly.

He turns back to the qunari.

“What do you want?”

—

**Author's Note:**

> If you have theories about the karens I would love to hear them


End file.
